Greco's well-heeled aloofness is a worthy asset in North Korea where the most seemingly inconsequential missteps could send him and his team to certain death.
On one level, Greco Mohammed’s story has the classic outlines of a familiar story of many first-generation Americans whose parents came to this country for a better life.
Greco’s mother and father came from the Middle East and had moved into the Detroit area more than 45 years ago with Greco being their first born. They spoke the Middle East dialect and Greco picked up the Arabic language before he went to school. His parents were raised as strict Muslims but as Greco grew older he learned English rather quickly.
Greco’s story, however, quickly sheds its routine character in three novels that send the American into the anti-American and terrorist cells of Middle East, Brazil, and North Korea. Naturally self-effacing and always discreet, Greco is an emotional challenge for loving family members who wish he would shed his aloof veneer, further deepened by the untimely death of his first love. However, that well-heeled aloofness is a worthy asset in the chronicled missions where the most seemingly inconsequential missteps are capable of unraveling the missions and sending Greco to a certain death.